Godsmack’s Sully Erna Confirms Band’s Label Change

When Godsmack return with their next album, it will be with a new label. Eagle-eyed fans may have noticed that Sully Erna's solo album, Hometown Life, will be released by BMG later this month (Sept. 30), and that label will also serve as the home for Godsmack.

Erna discussed the label change during the most recent webisode promoting his Hometown Life album. He states, as seen in the video above, "It's been a really interesting year so far, too, for me this year. Besides coming out with this new album, there's been a lot of changes I've been making in my life in general, and one of them was departing... After a 16-, 17-year relationship with Republic/Universal, our contractual obligations were up and we decided to move on and sign with BMG, which has been a real pleasure so far."

He adds, "It's coming back to having control as the artist and not being controlled by the record label. Not that we had a bad experience with Republic or Universal — they were great to us; we're still like family, and we really admire and respect those guys for everything they did for us — but, you know, years move on and things change, and so the industry changes, and so our relationship, as artists, to the industry has to change as well. And so it was just time. It was a good opportunity to try something new, and also be in a position of control again of our own music and of our own career."

During an appearance on The Jasta Show podcast, Erna stated that the band had a disagreement with their label during the last album over whether "Something Different" or "1000hp" should be the lead single. He told Jamey Jasta (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), "The label made some big promises to us, that ['Something Different'] was gonna be the big push, so we went with ['1000hp'] first, to just kind of crack it open, and then they just kind of bailed on us on [the 'Something Different'] single. And because of that, we don't think we're gonna be working with the label anymore. I mean, it was a big mistake on their behalf, we believe, and it's a song that I still believe in and it reacts live, and you'll see it every night."

He continued, "It was a big learning lesson for us, because from now on… You know, 'once, shame on you, twice, shame on me' kind of thing. So never again will I allow that to happen."

See Where Godsmack Landed on the Top 50 Hard Rock + Metal Debut Albums